Lifeways

The Montagnais did not try to farm their land of rocky soil and short growing season. Rather, they hunted and fished and gathered what wild plant foods they could. In order to eke out enough food in the harsh wilderness, they had to stay on the move. When snow covered the landscape, tribal members used snowshoes and toboggans.

The moose, common to the northern forests, was the chosen game in winter and early spring. Moose hunting necessitated long hours of tracking, usually on snow-shoes. Because the animals weighed almost 1,000 pounds and had sharp horns and hoofs, they were difficult and dangerous to hunt with spears or arrows. But the heavy animal would sink into the deep snow while the hunters on snowshoes could stay on top. Another way to kill a moose was to sneak up on one while it was feeding along a lake or river and drive it out into deep water. Then in canoes the hunters could overtake the animal and spear it from behind. The moose could not defend itself as well in water.

At the rivers in spring and summer, the Montagnais speared salmon and eels. Sometimes they traveled all the way to the St. Lawrence River to harpoon seals. Occasionally on these trips the small nomadic bands would join up to form much larger groups. The mood after the long, isolated winter months was festive. However, spring and summer were the seasons when insects were abundant, especially black flies and mosquitoes. The Indians had to smear their bodies with seal oil to repel them.

Like most Algonquians, the Montagnais covered their cone-shaped wigwams with birch bark, a prized material in forests that had many more spruce and fir trees than birch trees. When the Montagnais could not find enough birch bark or elm bark, their second choice, they would do what their Naskapi friends and relatives to the north did—stretch animal hides over the wigwam frameworks. But the Montagnais would use moose hides instead of the caribou hides the Naskapi utilized.

One custom of the Montagnais demonstrates just how hard their existence was in the subarctic. When old people could no longer keep up on the constant journeys in search of food, their families would not let them die of hunger and exposure. Instead, they would kill them as an act of mercy.

Many Algonquians of the eastern subarctic, including the Montagnais, believed in the legend of the windigos. (The Naskapis had a different name for these creatures— Atsan.) The windigos supposedly were monsters, from 20 to 30 feet high, who terrorized the northern forest. They had mouths with no lips but with long jagged teeth. They hissed when they breathed. They had claws for hands. They would eat animals if they had to, or other windigos, but most of all they craved human flesh. Their mouths, eyes, and feet were steeped in blood. Every hunter lost in the woods, every child who disappeared, was thought to have been devoured by windigos. Sometimes the windigos took possession of human bodies and lived inside them. These people with windigo souls would start desiring human flesh and would become cannibals. The legend probably originated when humans resorted to cannibalism in the face of starvation. Having such fearful creatures as windigos in Algonquian mythology served to discourage the practice in a land of little food and much hardship.

In spite of the extreme environment, the Montagnais survived year after year, century after century. Their numbers were stable until diseases brought to North America by Europeans caused their population to decline.